Beaver County Online

Review by Jason Panella, Beaver Falls, PA

The advance of technology has resulted in a wake of collateral damage, casualties not to strife but to convenience. As our cultures recent histories are solidifying in textbooks (or in PDFs), footnotes will hint at piles of Laserdiscs and pagers, or reference photos of families gathered around their radio for the evening’s entertainment.

This last one is especially sad; western society’s shift from radio drama to television drama was a bad thing per se, but it did help usher in a generation without any ability to use its collective imagination. The days of pulpy storytelling as art died with the flash of a cathode-ray tube.

That is, unless you’re James Catullo or Michael Rubino.

The Cellar Dwellers, a Beaver County based sketch comedy group, were contacted about performing at Café  Kolache, a coffee shop in Beaver, Pa. Realizing that the Dwellers would have a hard time packing into Kolache’s cozy interior, two members — Mike and James — decided to work on a side project to debut at the coffee shop.

Both were interested in the golden era of radio dramas, and were interested in trying the form out. They listened to classic episodes posted online, and felt like they could do something with a pulpy character, akin to the Shadow or Sky King.

The concept for Dodge Intrepid, their titular hero, was born from their mutual love of local lore and history; the automobile and interstate highways in post World War II had drastic impact on many small cities, including Aliquippa and Beaver Falls.

Set in a fictional version of 1940s Aliquippa, Dodge Intrepid and the Pages of Time features the adventures of world famous librarian Dodge Intrepid (voiced by Catullo) and his intern Pluck Gumption (voiced by Rubino). Dodge and Pluck have a laundry list of enemies bent on Aliquippa’s destruction, including a soliloquy prone nigh-immortal gypsy and an army of penguins, and their journeys often take them through time and space.

While there’s a wide-eyed sense of wonder about the radio show, it’s written with tongue rooted in cheek. Mike and James (with addition voice guru Michael Hinzman) saturate their radio shows with deadpan and offbeat humor. And it works quite well. Their writing has grown significantly since they began; while the first few shows had a few laughs, the crew’s most recent shows have caused me to cry from laughing so hard. The interaction between the supporting cast is my favorite thing — Mike and James have created a world so intricate that minor characters like monomaniacal newspaper editor Ted Brubaker or Dodge’s pathetically inept grandfather Edsel Intrepid feel like real people.

One of the best aspects about Dodge Intrepid, though, is how balanced it is. While any given episode is littered with pop culture references or local humor, it’s never alienating. And while there is a lot of backstory that’s developed over the past few years, it’s easy for first-time listeners to jump in — it rewards newcomer and devotee alike. And there are plenty of small wink and nod moments for people paying attention (Mike and James’s personal interests in literature and film come out often).

The Dodge crew usually performs several times a year at Café Kolache, their shows consisteing of four 30-minute episodes broken up by short intermissions. In keeping with the radio drama aesthetic, they interlace their segments with fake advertisements and secret messages to their faux fan club (which, sadly, has yet to form). Mike and James have also done a few one-shot episodes at Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea Co., often in conjunction with a local musician.

Rubino and Catullo plan on having another batch of episodes to debut in the early fall, so check their website for more information. You can also listen to all of their previous episodes in digital format. I suggest the live recordings…as nice as the studio efforts are, they don’t have the spontaneity of the broadcast performances.